Going Back
Okay, please partake in this exercise for a moment, my self-publishing indie authors. If you could go back, knowing what you know now, what would you tell your younger self? Got it figured out? Good. Now share that valuable piece of information to all your followers. Why should they have to make all the mistakes that you made? By telling them what you now understand, you’re adding some real value to their lives. And adding value first is a crucial component to becoming a successful authorpreneur.
For example, the young Dan, myself, was in his early 30s with 14 years of college completed and 7 degrees earned. While I thought that was pretty cool, I hadn’t specialized in any one thing long enough to get a doctorate. I figured that maybe that’s what was missing from my life as an author. I thought that perhaps if I had a doctorate, it would give me credibility, and people would buy more of my books. Having a big fancy title precede me like Dr. Blanchard would provide people with a positive perception of me before they even met me. This sort of thing must be good for book sales, right?
Well, guess what? I was wrong. Having a fancy title doesn’t really help that much. And imagine how many more years I would have spent in college and how much more money I would have spent specializing in something just to get that title. All that time, energy, and money would have been pulled away from my authorpreneurship business at the same time. That can’t be good, right? You want to know what I realized? You don’t have to have a fancy title, you just have to be a doer. Yup… A doer of deeds.
A while ago, someone almost knocked me over with this philosophy of not worrying about a title and just being a doer of good deeds. What this person said to me caused me to re-examine my whole life and what I was trying to do.
This person said to me, “Dan, you remind me of Jesus Christ. You’re a leader who does good with no title. That’s what Jesus did. And that’s what you’re doing.”
Wow! Double Wow! Now, I don’t really feel comfortable being compared to Jesus Christ. I imagine most of us wouldn’t. But I do appreciate the perception that this person had of me. I also appreciate the perception that many others out there also have of me. I’m a doer of good deeds. I’m just trying to do good. And I’m not being pretentious about it. I don’t have a title. I’m not waiting for permission. I’m just trying to do good though my authorpreneurship business.
What else would I tell my younger self if I could go back?
Well, Robert Kiyosaki comes to mind. I would definitely tell my younger self and my followers of today about Robert Kiyosaki and what he said about quick success. If you don’t know Robert Kiyosaki, he is the author of the book series, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Robert shares that when he was young, he had a Velcro wallet business that made him and his business partners millionaires overnight.
I’m sure we all dream of quickly succeeding and becoming millionaires, too, right? We’ve probably even dreamed of winning the lotto. Well, as Robert explains it, the problem with becoming too successful or too rich too soon is that it falsely makes you think you are smarter than you really are. Yup. We have big success, and we have big money, so we must have a bigger intelligence than everyone else, too, right?
This is a real problem when we believe that we’re smarter than we really are. You see, here’s the deal, business growth will come, and business growth will go. And it’s even more so with just a single product. And if our personal growth isn’t continuous because we have become complacent or even arrogant, we won’t know what to do when business growth leaves us. If we’ve become too over-extended like Robert did, then we’re looking for real trouble. Only then will we realize that we weren’t as smart as we thought we were. Now we realize that we need to keep working not just on the business but on ourselves, too.
Other things we need to do is to build our list. Don’t overspend like Robert Kiyosaki. And build a business, not just a product like Robert did with just his Velcro wallet. Through being an authorpreneur we now have a business. We don’t have to worry about making all of our money from only the sales of one book. Those sales will dry up someday. Then what will we do if we’re too dependent on the sales of that one book? We can’t just have a product or even a couple of products. We have to have a business. We have to be authorpreneurs.
*Watch this FREE video lesson on this chapter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVBM0486rfM&list=PL_-39bUXJitwL8cHUpiZ5mO0-JJuaPOVl&index=31
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